The service ticket has been utilized in the past as a means to promote the sale of commodities. Namely, the service ticket is usually issued in the form of a stamp ticket or a score point ticket that is handed to a purchaser of a commodity. The quantity of the ticket is typically varied according to the amount of the transaction(s) in question. The service ticket may also be issued in the form of a magnetic card upon which score points may be recorded according to the amount of the transaction(s) in question. These tickets and magnetic card may be exchanged with a premium according to the number or score point thereof collected by the purchaser or buyer. Sometimes, the tickets may be used as a money ticket.
Typically, the service ticket is issued by a service ticket distributor to a member store who pays money for the ticket. The service ticket is a printed matter upon which any value of score points may be recorded. The member store or shop (hereinafter simply referred to as member store) gives a purchaser a predetermined number of score points on the service ticket according to the amount of the transaction(s) between the purchaser and a member store. The purchaser who received the service ticket may keep it by sticking it on a sheet having a service ticket adhering section so as to preserve and to make it easy to calculate the total score points collected by the purchaser.
When the score points on a service ticket accumulate to a predetermined amount, the purchaser is allowed to exchange the service ticket for a specific commodity or to allocate the service ticket to the payment for a commodity at the member store. The service ticket thus used by the purchaser in this manner at the member store is returned again from the member store to the service ticket distributor in exchange for the money corresponding to the amount of the service ticket thus used. In this case, a difference in money between the price per score point of the service ticket which has been paid by the member store to the service ticket distributor when the service ticket is distributed from the service ticket distributor to the member store, and the exchange value of the service ticket at the time of using the service ticket by the purchaser is the handling charge that can be profited by the service ticket distributor.
It should also be appreciated that in the conventional system of distributing the service ticket as a means of promoting the sale of commodities, a purchaser who actually buys a commodity at a member store receives the service ticket as a tangible material. The amount of the service ticket is proportional to the amount of money paid by the purchaser for the commodity, and the service ticket thus received by the purchaser is kept and managed by the purchaser.
In the case of making payment for a commodity through a credit card, a service ticket may be attached to a payment note in accordance with the amount of payment, and the service ticket is kept and managed by the person who utilized the credit card. In this case, the time and method of receiving a service ticket may be somewhat different from the ordinary transaction involving cash. It should be recognized, however, that a tangible service ticket is involved in both cash and credit card transactions.
While effective for its intended purpose, the distribution of tangible service tickets is not without certain attendant disadvantages. First and foremost of these is the need for the purchaser to collect and carefully preserve and manage the service tickets for long periods of time. Otherwise, the service tickets that have been collected by the purchaser may be left unused or lost. In such a situation the purchaser receives no benefit. This is a problem that should be avoided.
Toward the end, the advertisement and transaction of commodities via communication over a personal computer have been recently realized. In this approach, the commodities transaction and payment therefor are all carried out solely through a communication system installed in the purchaser's house.
In such a system, the delivery of a service ticket (which is a tangible material) to the purchaser at the moment of transaction is impossible. Although it may be possible to subsequently deliver the service ticket by mail to the purchaser, such a method of delivering the service ticket is undesirable as it is remote in time, requires significant paper work and handling and is relatively costly.